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This is for those who want to know the concept behind The Wall: the album, and not just the songs. This is for us to discuss why the entire album was written, not just the songs individually, but for the concept behind the entire album.
This is also for discussion about the movie, which covers the album in a whole different light.
This is also for discussion about the movie, which covers the album in a whole different light.
Lyrics submitted by RainbowDemon, edited by Mellow_Harsher
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And a lot of their fathers were going off to fight in the war, many didn't come back. "What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where waves of hunger roam? Shall we set off across the sea of faces in search of more, and more applause? Shall we buy a new guitar? Shall we drive a more powerful car?.." He's referencing how as young adults they learned these coping mechanisms to deal with the loss of their families, searching out physical things to fill the empty spaces. Watching the movie really helps too, for instance, when Waters takes that one lady into his apartment, she walks around looking at all his stuff exclaiming at his guitars and how big the place is. But at the end of the day it wasn't enough for him.
And yeah Comfortably Numb is also about the disease Waters gets as a kid, in the movie he catches it from a rat. And I'm gonna go ahead and throw out that I second Who Rocks comment about JuliaDreamer, if you're gonna get on these sites just to dog songs everybody else here like, go ahead and don't post anything at all, no one wants to hear it.
My interpretation of The Wall: It is not about BARRETT but it IS about WATERS. Well, it's not ABOUT WATERS, IT IS WATERS!
The Wall is an autobiography. A brilliant autobiography.
The movie is clear: Pink (WATERS) builds a Wall (a mental and social wall) to protect himself from society and its troubles (human relationship, love story and break-up, order, conformity, success, fame, stupid fans, fear of death, fear of war, loss of a father... everything that fills up life). At the end, he becomes aware of his own alienation (STOP) and decides to judge himself (THE TRIAL) in order to free himself from his own wall.
"Since, my friend, you have revealed your deepest fear
I sentence you to be exposed before your peers
Tear down the wall!" He accepts to reveal his deepest fears, he accepts himself. This is great.
It deals with stability of mind. Everybody builds his/her own wall to have protection against violence in life. All we experience forms our identity - how we walk, talk, eat, think, sleep, move, laugh, kiss, love, get angry, listen, look... Everybody has a unique perception of things and a unique way to do things and that is because of our experiences. Our mind creates defensive mecanisms that WATERS summerized as The Wall. But some people go too far and lock themselves in their own brain (depression, paranoia, schizophrenia and other mental illness, one can put a reference to Syd BARRETT at this point and maybe WATERS thought of him when he wrote some lines, but it's not the main point). Pink (WATERS) IS NOT INSANE because he succeeds in breaking down the wall.
This is why The Wall is a fucking great album! It is UNIVERSAL and deals with self-identity and the relations with the others. Great philosophical theme. There is a lot more to say about this but it's not in the album nor in the movie which basically tells the psychic story of Pink/WATERS.
The conclusion is "accept yourself". The metaphor of the Wall and the Trial are brilliant.
Second thing: WATERS is incredibly billiant because he matches this first theme with fascism, doing a mix between 1984 and WWII propaganda and he adapts it to a rock band playing in front of a big crowd. Doing this, he deals with power (psychological and social power) and with the control of the minds. The band in the movie is a brick in the wall for all the fans. Fans love a band or an actor or a singer because it brings a reference, an ideal, a protection. Furthermore, he shows that one can easily manipulate a crowd and that a crowd has no intelligence and no will (it's the first idea of the album. The story about Waters spitting to a fan and being irritated because people who attended their shows were there to see famous people). A crowd is dumb. Here we can refer to "Psychology of crowds", a book written by Gustave Le Bon (a french sociologist) in 1895 which is prophetic about what happened with totalitarism.
So, The Wall album + movie is a masterpiece. I don't think there is another possible "interpretation" about that. One can dig deeper but it's still on the same themes.
Of course, the album alone and the songs can be interpreted in very different ways... one is free to think whatever he wants!
Sorry for my english, I'm not a native english speaker. Sorry if it's too long...
Last thing: for those who thinks it's not about WATERS: HENRY DAVID THOREAU says in WALDEN smthg like "oneself can only talk about himself" (I don't know the exact quote as I read it in french as "On ne parle jamais que de soi"). I believe it's widely true. Writers write about themselves even when they create fictive characters because it's their words, theirs visions of the world, of society, of people.
Pink is a fictive character who contains all the WATERS' neurosis!
Secondly, I don't know squat about the concept, and don't claim to know much more than that about Pink Floyd, but I know a little about depression.
JoeBaldwin has my vote on the meaning. Call it a concept if you like, but the fact of the matter is apparently Waters knows a thing or two about depression as well. It boggles my mind that he could convey what it feels like to be behind The Wall so precisely, and that's why I listen and believe in the genius behind Pink Floyd.
It's a horrible existence, and there is no easy remedy.
If you just don't get it, be thankful you don't get it.
i really fucking hope you are not serious.